Despite a ballooning elderly population in the United States, nursing homes are closing at an alarming rate. And minority communities are getting hit hardest, even though elderly minorities are outpacing affluent Whites. We put together this infographic to bring these staggering statistics to light. We encourage you to share this infographic, using the social media icons to help us spread the word about nursing home closures. In addition, you can embed the infographic on your blog or website using the HTML code provided. Please credit Assisted Living Today as the source.

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Raw Data From the Infographic:

Closures -16% of all certified nursing facilities closed between 1999 and 2008

-between 1999 and 2008, a national total of 1776 freestanding nursing homes closed (11% of all freestanding facilities)

-between 1999 and 2008, a national total of 1126 hospital-based nursing facilities closed (50% of all hospital based facilities)

-between 1999 and 2008, a national total of 2,902 total nursing facilities closed (16% of all Medicare/Medicaid certified facilities)

-60% of urban based hospital nursing facilities closed between 1999 and 2008

-11% of urban based freestanding facilities closed between 1999 and 2008

-10% of rural based freestanding facilities closed between 1999 and 2008

-less than 2% of nursing homes close each year in the US

-total number of beds lost due to facility closure: 184,264 (10.1% of all ever existing beds)

-87,362 (4.8%) beds were added due to facility openings

-cumulative net loss of 96,362 (over 5%) of beds

-poor financial and quality performance, and areas with the highest concentration of ethnic minorities are the most important and consistent antecedents of nursing home closures

Source: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/

Annual rates of nursing home closures and opening from 1993 through 2008

Pasted Graphic.tiff ¬

Source: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/

Regional and Interstate closures

-Southern US closures: 18%

-Western US closures: 17%

-Northeast US closures: 14%

-Midwest US closures: 14%

-zip codes with the highest percentage of blacks were 1.38x greater to have closed freestanding nursing facilities than those zip codes w/ lowest percentage of blacks

-zip codes with the highest percentage of hispanics were 1.37x greater to have closed freestanding nursing facilities than those zip codes w/ lowest percentage of hispanics

-zip codes with the highest level of poverty were more than 2x greater to have closed freestanding nursing facilities than those zips w/ lowest level of poverty

-zip codes in which at least one nursing home closed from 1999 through 2008, the nearest distance to an operating facility and residents’ families increased from 2.73 miles in 1999 to 3.81 miles in 2008

-zip codes w/o any nursing home closures by 2.8%, from 3.2 miles to 3.11 miles

-zip codes w/ highest poverty rate increased distance by 10.4% from 3.45 miles to 3.81 miles

-zip codes with the highest percentage of minorities increased distance by 6.7%, from 2.98 miles to 3.18 miles

-remaining zip codes increased distance by 6.4% from 3.12 miles to 3.32 miles